“How Do You Fail at a Shabbat Dinner?”

Let me paint you a picture: I was twenty-six, standing in the kitchen of my tiny West Hollywood apartment, crying into a pot of chicken soup. Not just regular tears—big, splashy "I’ve-ruined-my-life" tears. The air smelled like onions and regret. My hair was frizzing from the steam, the kugel I’d just pulled out of the oven looked like a crime scene, and I had officially, unequivocally, failed.

The plan had been simple—host my first-ever Shabbat dinner for my boyfriend’s family. Sure, he was only bringing his parents and his sister, but they weren’t just anybody. They were the Rosenfelds. His parents had been married for 35 years, the kind of couple who finished each other’s sentences and made retirement look like a rom-com montage. And his sister? She was one of those effortlessly chic women who exuded “casual cool” with her oversized sweaters and perfectly tousled hair (like she woke up in an Anthropologie catalog). It was the most intimidating dinner guest list of all time.

And reader? I bombed. Spectacularly.

The Kugel That Broke Me

The failure started with the kugel. I’d made my Aunt Sandy’s coveted noodle kugel recipe—a closely guarded secret written on the back of a tattered envelope. But somewhere between preheating the oven and attempting to caramelize the top into golden-brown perfection, I either forgot the sugar or added it twice. In the end, it tasted like wet cardboard. Or maybe, more charitably, like something a kugel would write in its diary during a depressive episode: “Nobody understands me.”

But the kugel was just the opening act. The chicken soup—every Jewish cook’s actual birthright—came out oily and lukewarm. And the challah? I thought buying a pre-braided one from the deli down the street would be fine. It was not fine. It was dense enough to double as a doorstop. My boyfriend’s dad actually joked, “Don’t drop this near the table. It might break something.” I laughed, but a small part of me wanted to throw the challah at him. Like, really hard.

The Silence of the Rosenfelds

Dinner itself could’ve been salvaged if I’d been able to carry the conversation. Unfortunately, my brain decided to stage a personal Yom Kippur at the worst possible moment. I was suddenly consumed by all of my sins. Why had I told that awkward story about mistaking my boyfriend for an Uber driver the first night we met? Why had I accidentally called his sister’s fiancé by her ex’s name? Why, oh why, had I tried to explain kugel to two people who had obviously been eating it for the past five decades?

When dessert rolled around—store-bought babka that I tried to pass off as homemade—it was clear that I was dangerously close to becoming a cautionary tale. My boyfriend gave me a reassuring squeeze under the table, but even he couldn’t save me from the Big Bad Rosenfeld Silence™ hovering over my apartment. You know the kind: polite smiles and quick “Mmm” sounds that let you know both parties are thinking, Well, this was...something.

Why Failure Tastes Better in Retrospect

At the time, the whole thing felt like a cosmic comedy sketch written just for me. I was wallowing in my self-inflicted disaster when my mom called the next day. “How’d it go?” she asked. When I gave her the lowdown—the Dead Sea-level-salty soup, the dry challah, the unintentional stand-up routine she described as “classic Becca”—she just laughed.

“Welcome to the club,” she said. I could practically hear her shrug over the phone. “I once burned every matzah ball while hosting the Weinsteins, so badly that your dad had to defrost chicken tenders for everyone. And you know what? It didn’t matter. They still come back every year.”

It took me a minute to realize she might be right. Sure, I had failed, but who hasn’t? My mom’s disasters hadn’t tanked our family Shabbat dinners, and maybe—just maybe—mine wouldn’t either. The Rosenfelds might not remember my soup or grandma-level kugel in a year. What they’d remember was the effort, the (misguided) heart, and the attempt at connection.

Resilience: A Dish Best Served with Laughter

Here’s what failure tastes like: it’s uncomfortable at first, a bit sour, but ultimately? It’s part of life’s banquet. That night in my kitchen—surrounded by burnt noodles and shattered ego—taught me more about resilience than any advice column ever could.

For one, perfection isn’t relatable. No one connects over perfectly seared chicken or artisan-crafted cocktails. It’s the stories of flops that bring people closer. I guarantee you my kugel mishap is still a running joke in the Rosenfeld family, and honestly? I’ve learned to laugh about it, too.

Second: success can’t exist without failure. If hosting that Shabbat dinner taught me anything, it’s that you’ve got to figure out what works by figuring out what really, really doesn’t. My second Shabbat—yes, there was a second—was a triumph. (Pro tip: Lox boards are your best friend. Guests will forgive everything if they have bagels and cream cheese in front of them.)

And finally: resilience means not quitting just because you’re bad at something at first. Whether it’s Shabbat dinners, new relationships, or learning how to navigate life on your own terms, failure is just part of the process. You mess up, you fix what you can, and then you keep going. That’s what turning failure into growth looks like, even if it takes years to realize.

The Take-Home Lesson

Looking back, my first Shabbat disaster wasn’t just a failure—it was a kind of initiation. Into adulthood, into relationships, into imperfection. Dating, after all, is a series of small failures and recoveries. You forget someone’s birthday. They accidentally call you by their ex’s name. You fight about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher—again. These tiny failures aren’t the end of the world; they’re the beginning of figuring out how to navigate it together.

So if life hands you tough challah, salty relationships, or a kugel that could double as furniture polish, take a deep breath. Laugh. And remember: failure is just seasoning for a better story down the road.